We manufacture plant-based frozen prepared food. The established range is Thai-style: green curry, pad kra pao, hot and sour soup, Thai salad, northern Thai dishes, sauces and ice cream. It goes to restaurants, cafes, premium campsites, destination restaurants and airline catering, all wanting the same thing: on the plate within ten minutes of heating.
The frozen range we make
Thai-style dishes are our established frozen range, supplied to restaurants, cafes, premium campsites, destination restaurants and airline catering. They all want the same thing: on the plate within ten minutes of heating.
- Thai green curryFrozen retort, heat and serve
- Pad kra pao, plant-basedA plant-based version of the classic
- Hot and sour soup 400g, plant-basedPortioned, no weighing in the kitchen
- Thai saladPrepped ingredients with dressing
- Northern Thai dishesRegional frozen prepared items
- Thai saucesSauce bases that set the taste for a kitchen
- Thai-style ice creamA frozen dessert line
Who it goes to, and how
The value of a frozen item is that the kitchen does not have to prep. A restaurant heats it and serves a dish that would otherwise need specialist skill, and it tastes the same every time.
Both wholesale and retail. Wholesale serves foodservice and institutional customers; retail runs through online platforms and live selling. The same item can do both, with a change of pack format.
Ice crystals: the whole story
Freezing is not simply lowering the temperature. Water forms crystals as it freezes, and crystal size depends on how quickly the product passes through the freezing range. Fast gives many small crystals; slow gives few large ones.
Large crystals puncture cell walls. On thawing the water inside runs out, showing as weeping and loose texture. That is exactly what consumers register as frozen food having poor mouthfeel. And the damage is invisible while frozen: the pack looks normal and the date mark is still valid.
The right freezing method depends on product thickness and water content. The centre of a thick item cools slowly, so even with the surface frozen the core may still be passing slowly through the freezing range, leaving one piece with two different crystal structures.
This is one reason formula and process are designed together. Thickness, shape, water content and portioning all change the freezing curve, and all of them are formulation-stage decisions.
Fluctuation cancels the work already done
Even where fast freezing succeeded, fluctuation in storage and transit undoes it. The mechanism is recrystallisation: on each small rise the smallest crystals melt first, and on cooling that water does not reform as small crystals. It merges into the large ones.
After a few cycles the internal crystal structure is close to what slow freezing would have produced. In other words, the quality of the cold chain can erase the investment made in the process.
So the specification is not below minus 18 degrees. It is below minus 18 with fluctuation controlled. The first constrains a set point; the second constrains the actual temperature history, and the second is the one that decides quality.
That is the substantive reason warehousing and delivery sit with us. Not to widen the engagement, but because the freezing curve and the cold-chain history are two halves of one thing, and split between parties nobody owns it.
Packaging behaves differently when cold
Packaging that performs at ambient can embrittle at minus 18. The glass transition temperature of a plastic decides whether it stays ductile or turns brittle when cold, and brittle packaging fractures during handling, stacking or a drop.
Seals need revalidating too. Seal material flexibility falls at low temperature, and thermal cycling during frozen storage accumulates stress at the seal. Seal strength that passed at ambient does not guarantee integrity after three months frozen.
Two more items get overlooked: water vapour barrier and stacking strength. A weak barrier produces frosting and moisture loss, so the surface ices up, weight drops and the texture dries out. Weak stacking strength deforms in the warehouse, costing storage efficiency and appearance.
| Time to core temperature | Confirms the thickest point also passes the freezing range quickly |
|---|---|
| Drip loss after thawing | The direct measure of ice damage to cell structure |
| Texture after reheating | Following the label instruction, checked for reproducibility |
| Cold embrittlement | Drop and handling testing at temperature |
| Seal integrity after frozen storage | Seal strength retested after a period frozen |
| Frosting and moisture loss | Barrier performance and weight change tracked |
| Stacking strength | Tested against the actual pallet configuration |
Portioning changes the freezing curve
Portioning is not only a packaging decision. It changes the freezing rate directly. The same weight as a thin slab and as a thick block freeze at very different speeds, and freezing time sets crystal size.
That creates a real tension: the portion size a channel or a consumer wants is not necessarily the shape that freezes best. Large packs cost less per unit and channels accept them, but the centre cools slowly. Small portions freeze fast and thaw better, but packaging and handling cost rise.
The answer is usually in between: keep the total portion the consumer needs but change the internal division or the shape, for example turning one block into separable pieces, or reducing thickness and increasing area. These are formulation-stage decisions, because they affect tooling, packaging and line settings together.
Foodservice items carry one more consideration: the unit the kitchen actually draws down. Portioning to how much is used at once solves freezing efficiency and post-opening waste at the same time, which is part of why semi-finished components work so well there.
The thawing instruction is a specification
The same product thawed different ways gives different results. Room temperature, refrigerated thawing and cooking from frozen each suit different items, and the wrong choice creates a texture or a food safety problem.
So thawing and reheating instructions are validated during development: following the label, does it produce the intended result? If only a trained chef gets it right, the instruction is not doing its job.
It matters most for foodservice. Kitchen staff follow the label, and an unclear instruction or a narrow condition window becomes quality variation between branches, which is the one thing a restaurant brand cannot accept.
Retail items have to account for the real situation: a domestic freezer runs at an unstable temperature and thawing time is uncontrolled. The instruction has to hold under those conditions, not under ideal ones.
Sour-spicy, coconut and spice-paste plant-based frozen items are among the categories we handle. The challenge in these formulas is that spice character shifts during frozen storage and coconut emulsions tend to separate after thawing. Both are watched in the shelf-life study.